


Blackberry Winter

by samcatburglar



Category: Slayers (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27141454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samcatburglar/pseuds/samcatburglar
Summary: As a busy T.A. and a single mom, finding time to hang out with friends is difficult for Filia. Finding the heart to do it is even harder.
Relationships: Filia Ul Copt/Xellos
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Blackberry Winter

From her bed, Filia watched the sky pale.

Seeing it shift from black to blue used to comfort her as a child, as that blue was a sign that light would soon arrive to chase away the shadows that made her heart race with terror in the night. At the moment however, it just reminded her of the hours she spent awake, and of how tired she would be for the rest of the day. At least it was Saturday, which meant that she didn’t have to be on campus for class or office hours. There was still a literal and figurative laundry list of chores she had to get done, but she didn’t let those thoughts take root. There was no room. So she just waited, eyes thick with sleep and with tears, and watched as the sky paled further.

Further relief could be found in the fact that Val was asleep. Bundled up in her arms beneath a mountain of blankets, he was finally slumbering with features relaxed, not pinched with the fear brought on by nightmares. She yawned, cavernous and quiet, and looked back down at the curled up toddler. His chubby cheeks were still a little ruddy from all the crying, and Filia couldn’t help but trace the back of her finger over them with gentle fussiness. Peachy soft, just as a baby’s should be. 

It was when he was awake that he seemed a little less cherubic. His eyes, specifically. It wasn’t their color, light brown to the point of being almost golden, it was their _focus_. Val still tripped with childlike clumsiness when he ran across the playground, but when he watched something, his gaze was a hawkish, piercing one, and it held an intelligence far too sharp for one so young. Filia wasn’t there for the first few days, but somehow she knew he’d had that look since he was born, and it definitely hadn’t left him since.

She burrowed down in the blankets more securely around her son, eager to chase away the pang of terror that inevitably came when she thought on the hardness she swore she saw in his eyes sometimes. Valgaav had been full of that hardness, encasing him whole like scar tissue on an old wound many times reopened, and Filia always found herself staring at him with horrified rapture each time she met with him. Strangers were now caught in the very same rapture with his son. His eyes were certainly softer in comparison with the feral madness that marked his father’s, and most people just made cooing comments as to how smart her baby was. Filia always smiled graciously, and prompted her son for a polite _thank you_ , but Val only ever continued to stare until he let his head fall against her chest in disinterest, more entertained by her hair than the strangers who fussed. They always tended to hurry away, clearly unsettled, as though they’d just received a harsh reprimand or a scathing insult. It’s why Val wasn’t making friends at daycare. It’s why _she_ wasn’t making friends at daycare.

And since the incident with Xelloss, this behavior had only gotten worse.

But as Filia stared out the window at the leafy silhouettes of trees outside her apartment, she hoped with her usual desperate earnest that her love could save him. She hoped that his frame would grow to be lithe and lean, not starved and bony like his father’s, that his sharp white teeth would glisten with a joyous smile and not flash in his mouth in gashes of deranged laughter. She promised him a good life. A _soft_ life.

Even if it meant losing the one person on this earth who ever made her feel _free_.

She was this state of semi-lucid, fist-clenchingly hopeful dreaming when her phone buzzed. She didn’t move. Her phone was always filled with alarms and reminders and notifications from games she played with Val. Hazy lucid dreaming was about to take her again, but the buzz came again. A long, sniffly inhale was followed by a sharp exhale as Filia essentially threw her arm out from her nest of blankets onto her bedside table to retrieve her phone.

The notifications she saw made her blink in confusion.

_[ From: Sylphiel Nels Lahda, 7:21 a.m. ] Good morning, Filia! We missed you last night! I hope this doesn’t sound creepy, but I remember you saying one time that you really liked going to Target, and I actually need some hangers, so I wanted to see if maybe you wanted to come with? We can get coffee (or tea!)_

_[ From: Sylphiel Nels Lahda, 7:23 a.m. ] Oh and I don’t know if you were worried about this, but I don’t mind if Val is there! He’s a sweet baby <3!_

Filia sat up, careful to leave her son tucked away in the warmth of her comforter while a slight shiver of cold down ran down her spine. Good. That woke her up a little. But it made the situation no less confusing. Sylphiel wanted to hang out? With _her?_ Filia’s throat immediately tightened with a knee-jerk bitterness that told her the sweet brunette only extended the invite out of pity, but Filia let her head fall into her chest as she rubbed her eyes and forced that bile back down her throat. Of course it wasn’t pity. Sylphiel wasn’t the type.

Filia was still going to say no, but Sylphiel wasn’t the type.

What she was typing wasn’t untrue — that laundry list of chores bubbled up to the surface again, as well as some last minute grading she had to do for a class, and she would rather get those done during the day. If she were finished at a reasonable time, though, she would reach out! She wouldn’t. But the true answer was more pathetic.

She was in the middle of her typing when she felt a small squirming at her belly, followed by a fussy, drowsy whine. A little fist emerged from the blanket nest. Grasped at her shirt.

“Mama…?”

Filia tossed the phone and unfinished text to the other side of the bed.

“Look who’s awake…!” She cooed as she nestled back down in the blanket nest to have a look at her son, who was clumsily wiping one eye of sleep. “Good morning, chicken!”

“G’morning, Mama.”

He was only three years old, but every day since he decided to start talking (and it was that, a decision, not something that came naturally), he said these words to her. It made spring flowers more vibrant, summer sunshine brighter, and now autumn’s fiery shiver of changing leaves that much more cozy. 

She pressed a long, lingering kiss to his forehead, but before she could tell him to brush his teeth, he was clambering out of the blankets and over Filia’s side. She winced a little. Exactly like a kitten, unaware of his own body. She was about to laugh, but froze as she saw what he was doing. He was checking the other side of the bed. And autumn’s chill suddenly felt more like winter’s choking, dark embrace.

Val didn’t say anything, he just flopped on that empty space on the bed before scrambling up to his knees. If he was at all disappointed that the previous occupant of that side wasn’t there, he wasn’t showing it. Instead, he reached for Filia’s phone.

“Mama, c’n we play Kitties?”

She sniffled a little, and made sure her mouth wasn’t trembling when she smiled and took the phone from him. “Not right now, baby. We have to brush our teeth and eat breakfast first. Then we can see about Kitties.”

“Oh-kaaaaaaaay!” He slid off the bed, and toddled his way to the bathroom.

“I’ll be in there in a second, okay? Don’t go into the cabinets without my help, please!”

She finished the last word of her text, but her finger hovered over the send button. Her chest felt tight and her throat was tense with cries just barely smothered. Continuing through another day with Val looking for signs that Xelloss was coming back was almost unbearable, and she needed every scrap of energy she could get — wasting them on the efforts to make herself stop crying seemed useless. Distraction was exactly what they both needed.

She held her finger on the back button.

_[ To: Sylphiel Nels Lahda, 7:27 a.m. ] Oh my gosh, I’m so happy you thought of me! I’d love to come. And don’t worry, Val is great at stores. It’ll be nice for both of us to get out of the house._

_[ To: Sylphiel Nels Lahda, 7:27 a.m. ] What time were you thinking? I just have to get Val ready and I’m free!_

With renewed determination to have a nice day, Filia took a deep breath and practically marched over to the bathroom where her son was waiting patiently. “Guess what, chicken?”

His eyes lit up immediately. “What?”

“You remember Auntie Sylphiel? The one who always brings you the nice coloring books with all the animals?”

“Auntie Sypheel, yeah!”

Filia exhaled a gentle huff of laughter. Sylphiel was one of the few people Val could stand to be around, and seeing curiosity blossom in him instead of vague acceptance was kindling the hope that today could in fact be nice.

“We’re all going to hang out today and run some errands. Won’t that be fun? You can show her the wonderful job you did with the purple seals!”

“Purble and _yellow!_ ”

“Purple and yellow, yes! My mistake.” They were the only colors he knew, and at this point she wondered if those were the only colors he cared to know. But still, Filia wasn’t going to complain about a precocious toddler. How could she feel anything else but pride? In a rush of affection, she ate up his soft little cheeks in a flurry of kisses, growling and roaring and eliciting bubbling giggles from her toddler. She laughed in turn, then patted his belly decisively. “Ok come on! The faster we brush our teeth and get dressed, the faster we get to see Auntie Sylphiel! I’ll race you!”

“Race, race, Mama!”

**Author's Note:**

> hi my name is sam and i always start 38498 things and am the worst at finishing them i'm so sorry.


End file.
